It’s award season here at Twinfinite! Let’s look back at the best sports and racing games from 2017. Voted on by our editors, these games stood out as the best experiences this year for sport gaming fans. Let’s start our top vote-getting honorable mentions, runner-ups, and finally, of course, our overall winner!
Second Runner-Up: FIFA 18
The Best Sports/Racing Game of 2017
With the resurgence of Pro Evolution Soccer over the past few years, EA’s FIFA series has had to up its game. As an overall package it offers everything a soccer fan would want, from fun gameplay to a huge array of deep modes to jump into.
Not much of that content is new for FIFA 18, but the alterations that have been made to how individual players behave on the pitch and the continuation of Alex Hunter’s story make it feel like a step forward, on top of the quality annual offerings. It may not be perfect at all times on the pitch, but when it comes to presentation, content, visuals, and atmosphere it is unrivaled.
The game re-creates the match day atmosphere perfectly, using the noise of the crowd, lighting, and passionate commentary to make you feel like you’re playing a part in a huge derby match. Each real-world player looks just like they would if you were to watch them on TV and the biggest stars, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, move in their own unique and instantly recognizable ways. Modes like Ultimate Team also continue to pull players back in with their wonderful design and frequent live content drops. FIFA is still top of the league when it comes to the complete football experience.
First Runner-Up: Madden NFL 18
The Best Sports/Racing Game of 2017
Unlike FIFA that at least has Pro Evolution around to keep it honest, Madden NFL has no competition. It’s up to EA to keep itself fresh. For the last couple of years, that has been a problem as the franchise was started to get a bit stale. This year though, EA stepped it up and took a real chance with the long running annualized football franchise. It added a story mode and it actually wasn’t terrible.
Longshot, follows the story of promising but troubled prospect Devin Wade as he tries to break into the NFL. The campaign luckily doesn’t take itself too seriously and is full of cliched characters and sport movie moments. It’s not going to win “Best Story” from us anytime soon or ever probably, but it had its share of laughs, fun times, and memorable moments which is all we can ask for out of a story mode in Madden. More importantly it was finally something that was truly different and new.
On top of that, Madden NFL 18 continued to bolster its competitive online modes from previous years. Its ranked online play is rich with content, and is among the best for traditional sport games. We’ll have to see how EA decides to build on what they accomplished in Madden NFL 19, but everyone involved should be happy with the product for this year.
Winner: Forza Motorsport 7
The Best Sports/Racing Game of 2017
Considering the competition in the racing genre this year (Dirt 4, Project Cars 2, and Gran Turismo Sport), it is impressive that the Forza series managed to stay at the front of the pack. Not only is it as beautiful as always, but it features more content than fans have ever seen in the series to date. There are enough cars to please all kinds of tastes, and you can jump into them on a generous selection of tracks.
It is also the most accessible racer for players of all ability. The handling is easy to get to grips with but it can be tweaked in a variety of ways to give experienced players more of a challenge. Forza 7 also combines the wonderful racing itself with stunning locations and weather and time of day effects to create a complete package that is a celebration of all things motorsport.
Whether you want to collect the hundreds of cars or casually throw a supercar around a corner, Forza Motorsport 7 is the best option from 2017. With the strength of the core games and the quality of its open world spin-off, Horizon, the Xbox exclusive Forza series will continue to dominate the genre for years to come.
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